Network Affiliates That Are Too Close To Each Other

[dave73]

I'm surprised that no bought up the Grand Rapids-Kalamazoo-Battle Creek TV market, where there's already 2 ABC affils, WZZM in Grand Rapids and WOTV in Battle Creek.

Not to mention, ABC affiliates that are owned by different companies: LIN Broadcasting owning WOTV (sister station is WOOD-TV) & Gannett owning WZZM. Had Gannett been able to buyout WOTV, then it would have been a simulcast.

Whenever I was able to pickup WZZM & WOTV during the 80's & 90's, The only time programming was the same was during primetime & other network programming, then the rest of the programming would be separate.

 

[dave73]

I'm surprised that no bought up the Grand Rapids-Kalamazoo-Battle Creek TV market, where there's already 2 ABC affils, WZZM in Grand Rapids and WOTV in Battle Creek.

Not to mention, ABC affiliates that are owned by different companies: LIN Broadcasting owning WOTV (sister station is WOOD-TV) & Gannett owning WZZM. Had Gannett been able to buyout WOTV, then it would have been a simulcast.

Whenever I was able to pickup WZZM & WOTV during the 80's & 90's, The only time programming was the same was during primetime & other network programming, then the rest of the programming would be separate.

I need to make a correction to my post. WOTV's call letters used to be on channel 8 (now WOOD-TV), while the current WOTV was originally WUHQ. WZZM's previous owners were Northstar, who tried to buy the station in 1991, but couldn't afford to buy the station to make it a simulcast. Gannett didn't buy WZZM until 1995. LIN bought WOTV in 2002.

I read that the station had to rely on WZZM's signal for network programming, since they couldn't get a direct feed from ABC themselves in the early days. They sometimes had to rely on WSJV Elkhart/South Bend as well.

 

[TexasTom]

So now the question is this: In this economy & in this world where cable, satellite & the internet continue to make OTA network tv more & more irrelevant, why don't neighboring markets team up, combine markets & have the big 4 cover the entirety of these new markets? There would be squabbling at first over deciding who would stay & who would go, but this could be one way for some broadcasters to remain in business.

Probably because there is absolutely no point in doing this.

The only scenario where this could possibly benefit the stations would be if you were to combine two fairly small markets into a single medium sized market. Since most of the scenarios that have been outlined involve either two large markets in close proximity (ie, Washington and Baltimore) or a small market in proximity with a close market (ie, Manchester and Boston), that doesn't leave many places where your proposal would make even theoretical sense.

In the large and medium sized markets, big four affiliates are still profitable (even if less profitable than a few years ago), which means that no one would want to give up their affiliations.

 

[cowboybud]

-Waco and Bryan, Texas. Two CBS affiliates, one owner. Bryan/College Station has some repeaters but only the CBS airs a full local newscast.

Pre-digital, KBTX could be picked up pretty clearly OTA in the northern suburbs of Houston. In fact, I think Zap2it still lists it as a local if you put in a Houston zip code.

 

[tripinva]

Pre-digital, KBTX could be picked up pretty clearly OTA in the northern suburbs of Houston. In fact, I think Zap2it still lists it as a local if you put in a Houston zip code.

I've heard several stories of people who couldn't get KBTX-3 analog but now get the digital.

- Trip

 

[firepoint525]

Jackson, TN, and Memphis both have ABC affiliates. WBBJ-channel 7 is the ABC affiliate for Jackson. The Memphis affiliate used to be WHBQ, channel 13, but I believe they are FOX now, and the Memphis ABC affiliate is on UHF now, probably either 24 or 30, but I don't live in that area anymore now. For that matter, Jackson also has a FOX affiliate now, I believe.

 

[bpatrick]

The Memphis ABC affiliate is on Ch. 24 (WPTY). Jackson
probably had to have its own ABC affiliate since, as you
pointed out, Memphis used to get ABC on Ch. 13 (high VHF)
and now on 24 (UHF), while Nashville had ABC first on Ch. 8
(stronger signal than 13 but still not as good as 4 and 5 there),
then on Ch. 2, which always operated at less than full power
so as not to short-space WSB/2 Atlanta.

It's much the same reason Bowling Green got its own ABC
affiliate; the Nashville situation, plus ABC in Louisville was
on Ch. 32, then on Ch. 11 so again there's not the wide
coverage of a full-powered low VHF.

 

[jal41]

From 1995-2008, WNEG 32 Toccoa, GA was a full CBS affiliate. It acted as a semi-satellite of WSPA 7/Spartanberg (they were co-owned by Media General), although programming was entirely seperate (and switched out of Toccoa to boot). Toccoa is not even 100 miles from Atlanta, and much less to Greenville/Sparanberg. When the University of Georgia bought WNEG-TV last October, the affiliation was pulled for obvious reasons.

Another set of close markets is Dothan, AL and Panama City, FL. WTVY/Dothan acts as the CBS station for Panama City (and is co-owned by Gray with NBC WJHG/Panama City). Both stations have CW and MyNet subchannels that are identical. Raycom's Fox affilates WDFX/Dothan and WPGX/Panama City are operated together (although WDFX carries news from sister station WSFA/Montgomery, while WPGX has no news). Both WSFA and WJHG are carried on Dothan cable systems for NBC service.

 

[anotherguyTN]

Jackson, TN, and Memphis both have ABC affiliates. WBBJ-channel 7 is the ABC affiliate for Jackson. The Memphis affiliate used to be WHBQ, channel 13, but I believe they are FOX now, and the Memphis ABC affiliate is on UHF now, probably either 24 or 30, but I don't live in that area anymore now. For that matter, Jackson also has a FOX affiliate now, I believe.

The Memphis ABC affiliate is on Ch. 24 (WPTY). Jackson
probably had to have its own ABC affiliate since, as you
pointed out, Memphis used to get ABC on Ch. 13 (high VHF)
and now on 24 (UHF), while Nashville had ABC first on Ch. 8
(stronger signal than 13 but still not as good as 4 and 5 there),
then on Ch. 2, which always operated at less than full power
so as not to short-space WSB/2 Atlanta.

It's much the same reason Bowling Green got its own ABC
affiliate; the Nashville situation, plus ABC in Louisville was
on Ch. 32, then on Ch. 11 so again there's not the wide
coverage of a full-powered low VHF.

WBBJ 7 in Jackson was originally CBS and changed to ABC some time in the 60's. There are also KAIT 8 in Jonesboro, AR and WDKH 45 in Houston, MS (Tupelo area) that would at least partially overlap with 24.

WJKT 16 is Jackson's Fox affiliate. It started out as an independent, then went to simulcasting with WLMT 30 in Memphis when it was with Fox, then went to UPN when it began in 1995. When UPN and WB merged to become The CW, 30 went with CW while 16 went back to Fox because of Jackson having the WB/CW 100 network on Charter Cable. 16 still simulcasts 30's 9 PM newscast, which is produced by 24. Can it get any more complicated? :

 

[RadioDze]

In the rather spread out (by East Coast standards) Raleigh-Durham-Fayetteville, NC DMA, we once had two FOX affiliates, WLFL-TV 22 in Raleigh was the first, but in the early-to-mid 1990s, the former WFCT-TV 62 in Fayetteville became WFAY-TV and affiliated with FOX. This was not a co-ownership or simulcast deal. FOX 22 has a full-market signal, while the lower-powered FOX 62 covers Fayetteville and the communities immediately around it, plus the northern reaches of the Florence-Myrtle Beach-Lumberton market, but was (and still is post 6/12/09) basically non-existent in the Raleigh and Durham portion of the market. For a short while, WFAY actually simulcasted its non-FOX offerings on a station in the market seen in Raleigh and Durham, WRAY-TV 30. This all ended around 1997-1998, when PAX bought FOX 62 (which became WFPX) and FOX moved its affiliation to WRAZ-TV 50. To this day, we still have two Ion affilates in the market (channel 62 in Fayetteville and WRPX-TV 47 in Rocky Mount), though they're co-owned and neither signal covers the market completely.

 

[MR5229]

Another example would be between the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento. Even though driving from SF to Sacramento is around 80 miles, the distance from the Sacramento transmitters to SF is around 60 miles. Looking at the service contour maps from the FCC, the Sacramento stations would cover the majority of the SF Bay Area so the coverage area would overlap big time with the SF Bay Area stations. That's on paper at least. Realistically, the SF Bay Area has many hills and mountains, therefore not really allowing both signals to overlap OTA. There are a few exceptions where both market stations can be received at the same time in one location, but those locations are scattered around, depending on the geography of the location.

 

[kenrayc]

Another example would be between the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento. Even though driving from SF to Sacramento is around 80 miles, the distance from the Sacramento transmitters to SF is around 60 miles. Looking at the service contour maps from the FCC, the Sacramento stations would cover the majority of the SF Bay Area so the coverage area would overlap big time with the SF Bay Area stations. That's on paper at least. Realistically, the SF Bay Area has many hills and mountains, therefore not really allowing both signals to overlap OTA. There are a few exceptions where both market stations can be received at the same time in one location, but those locations are scattered around, depending on the geography of the location.

Very true there are a lot of areas in the East Bay that can get Sacramento and vise versa going east on I-80 towards Sacramento and on 580 towards Stockton and Modesto,Livermore gets both markets as well, But Sacramento network affilaites are located in Walnut Grove on purpose east of Mt Diablo the keep them from SF itself there are some IND stations on Mt. Diablo that serve both SF and Sacramento, At one Time back in the 50s KOVR 13 was up there at Mt. Diablo and in order to be a ABC affiliate for Sacramento they had to move there Tower down to Walnut Grove.Mt Diablo is in between I-580 and I-80 East of the Bay Area..

 

[LKellerIII]

Another example would be between the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento. Even though driving from SF to Sacramento is around 80 miles, the distance from the Sacramento transmitters to SF is around 60 miles. Looking at the service contour maps from the FCC, the Sacramento stations would cover the majority of the SF Bay Area so the coverage area would overlap big time with the SF Bay Area stations. That's on paper at least. Realistically, the SF Bay Area has many hills and mountains, therefore not really allowing both signals to overlap OTA. There are a few exceptions where both market stations can be received at the same time in one location, but those locations are scattered around, depending on the geography of the location.

I've heard that the reason that KNTV re-branded themselves as "NBC11" after a couple of years as "NBC3" (their cable dial position) was because of confusion in the North and far East Bay from viewers who could get both KNTV and KCRA - channel 3 in Sacramento

 

[vchimpanzee]

I don't know that this means the markets are "too close", but where I live I can pick up the CBS, ABC, CW, Fox and My Network affiliates of a market where most of the channels aren't on my cable system. The ABC, Fox and PBS stations that are on my cable system have their towers closer to that other market but I haven't been able to depend on any of them since the DTV transition; one reason may be my antennas point the other way. The NBC, CBS, CW and My Network stations on my cable system are in the other direction, so they'd be harder to pick up. Maybe an outdoor antenna would work. What I have works fine and the cable has never gone out for long, the one exception being an individual station which lost its cable connection in a storm.

 

[upstate29651]

So now the question is this: In this economy & in this world where cable, satellite & the internet continue to make OTA network tv more & more irrelevant, why don't neighboring markets team up, combine markets & have the big 4 cover the entirety of these new markets? There would be squabbling at first over deciding who would stay & who would go, but this could be one way for some broadcasters to remain in business.

Probably because there is absolutely no point in doing this.

The only scenario where this could possibly benefit the stations would be if you were to combine two fairly small markets into a single medium sized market. Since most of the scenarios that have been outlined involve either two large markets in close proximity (ie, Washington and Baltimore) or a small market in proximity with a close market (ie, Manchester and Boston), that doesn't leave many places where your proposal would make even theoretical sense.


In the large and medium sized markets, big four affiliates are still profitable (even if less profitable than a few years ago), which means that no one would want to give up their affiliations.

Recheck your thoughts on medium sized markets. I would have to disagree with your assertion that they're currently profitable. Maybe one station (a flagship or heritage) is, but on balance, I'd say most currently are not.

As I said earlier, OTA network TV is quickly fading into oblivion. Combining markets, in some instances, may be the only way some survive. Also consider this scenario: Markets combine, new combined (larger) market moves up in ranking size, which is a reason to justify increases on ad rates....profit!

It makes perfect sense.

G